Semper Obscura
by Katkiller-V
Summary: Sometimes the heroes aren't the centers of the story. Sometimes its the broken, battered warrior in the corner, staying out of the spotlight, staying quiet, and just soldiering on. Their stories will be told. This will be a collection of short stories and character profiles, taking place along-side Semper Victoria / Furor / Vitae.
1. The Night Witches - 1

I don't own Avatar.

* * *

**Semper Obscura**

Yes, this is not an update to _Semper Vitae_, I apologize. My writer's block in regards to that story is still in effect ( I have random scenes from future acts completed, but am still having difficulty getting the story to flow from the outline to my head and into chapters properly). To try and alleviate that, I'm restarting this old work to try and get back into Avatar and my Semper universe.

For those who do not remember, this fic will be a collection of short (2-4 chapter) stories about some of the background characters from the main trilogy, as well as some character profiles of faces both familiar and new. None of these stories will _have_ to be read for _Vitae_ to make sense, but hopefully they'll be enjoyable and do a reasonable job of bringing more personality to those who have not gotten enough screen time.

Also, currently there are no further interludes to Terra/Earth planned in _Vitae_. Such things will be included here instead. I might include some of the technical data that I've used as references, such as the orders of battle for the various combats, the casualty reports, etc, if people are interested in that kind of thing.

I will contemplate short-story / side-story requests. Message me if there was something you always wanted to see/know about Victoria/Furor/Vitae, and I'll see about including it.

_**Please, please review these stories. Reviews are my life blood, the more I get, the more I am inspired to keep working on these stories.**_

_**My thanks,**_

_**Katkiller V**_

* * *

**Story I: The Night Witches**

**This will be a four chapter short story, focusing on the surviving members of the American Combat Engineers, who were nearly wiped out during the Battle of Tartarus (_Semper Victoria)_, and their efforts to recover important portions of the stereolithography plant from the ruins of Hell's Gate. All in all, a simple objective for an AMP suit team, but, as is usual on Pandora, even a simple task rarely stays that way for long..**

* * *

**Chapter I: Volatile Personalities**

**Date**: 12:25, March 15th, 2171

**Location**: Tartarus Assembly Field, Pandora, Alpha Centauri A System

Sergeant-Major Joanne Milana, snugly cocooned within the metal shell of her AMP suit, slowly twisted the mechanical torso, regarding the line of machines before her.

Seven suits of misshapen metal and wounded flesh, manned by what was left of _Präriewolf Kampfgruppe. _

_Eight of us. Eight scarred survivors, and one hundred piles of ash. At least we're luckier than Wiegand's people, eight is greater than zero. Although... some of us would probably prefer to be dead than alive._

The suits themselves were battered hulks of metal, their limbs misshapen, looking more like metallic versions of Frankenstein's monster than advanced machines of warfare and labor. Only two were actually standing on their original legs, and only two more actually had level shoulders. It was difficult to notice for most while they were simply standing, but the moderate limps that they walked with made it a dead give away to anyone familiar with the machines. Most were missing at least one, if not more, armored plates, revealing the interior wires and gears normally kept protected.

All the same, she nodded in approval at her people's work, and flicked her mic on.

"All right kids, I'm sure you're wondering why the hell I dragged you back from the mining site, so here it is. Unless you've all been more obsessed than normal with your suits this past month, you already know that the _Terran Winter_ is pulling into orbit as we speak. In her cargo hold is our brand-spanking new stereolithography plant." she crossed her suits arms across angular chest, leaning the machine forwards slightly to impart the her glare, "Its installation is critical, and its arrival has given us a mission of our very own."

Her arm waved towards the north west, the rust stained limb matching the motion with a screech grinding metals. "The Administrator talked with the engineers aboard the _Winter, _and theywant us to head to Hell's Gate. Once there, we are to load up what is left of the old plant. He thinks that we might be able to splice whatever working parts we can find into our new one, to improve production."

She paused, taking a sip from a water bottle crudely hanging from the left-side bulkhead, then continued, "We'll be loading up into the Valkyrie at fifteen hundred hours. Expect for a three day operation on site."

Sergeant McCarthy, her suit's engine rumbling at nearly double the volume of the others, took a limping step forwards, "Ma'am, we will have any support?" the tone of her voice indicated that she believed she already knew the answer.

And Joanne confirmed it for her second in command, "Negative, they can't afford to send anything more than us. The scientists already loaded a few pallets of food and water into the Armory, and the pilots are prepping the Valkyrie as we speak."

"How many loads a day are we expecting ma'am?" Private Thompson asked, his suit doing its best to shrug, "If there's just the eight of us, then splitting between defending the shuttle and running salvage could slow us down quite a bit."

"That's correct. The Valkyrie and her pilots will be doing double duty, loading the salvage as well as hauling down gear from the _Winter_, so we can expect to load her once a day, probably in the morning. Defense will allocated as we need it, and we have _carte blanche_ to set up any barricades we need."

Private Young half raised a metal hand, "Ma'am, with the blue-skins still hiding in their tree, what kind of fauna could we be looking at?"

"The geeks aren't sure." she admitted, glad her subordinates could not see her wince, "They don't think there will be much re-population yet, but Viper Wolves and Sting bats are both known to frequent the region, and the base in particular. Anything else?"

A long silent pause followed, which caused her to nod, "Then grab your gear and any spare equipment you think you might need, and let's get loaded. Sergeant McCarthy, a word."

As the other suits mixed lumbering and limping as they headed away, the only other surviving Sergeant slowly strode so that they were standing next to one another.

Joanne flicked her communications to a restricted channel, just between the pair of them, "Andrea, how is your suit?"

The other woman flexed a mechanical arm, the screeching sounds caused by the motion noticeably better than the week prior. "Not bad. Still working on weapon concepts, but its handling all right."

She snorted, reaching out to lightly jab the other suit on its shoulder, "That's not what I meant and you know it."

"My upgrades are holding." the younger woman's tone became defensive, "Everything is running green."

"But will it hold for three days at Hell's Gate?" she pressed her friend, "I know you've been tinkering with the whole damn suit. Hell, we all have, but you've taken it farther than anyone else. I want to know for _sure_ that your overclocked gear isn't going to fall apart on you the day after we arrive. We can't afford to be down on this run."

"It won't."

"It had better not. I want you to grab all the extra parts you can. Make sure your squad does the same, even one breakdown could put as at risk over there."

"I'll handle it." the other woman promised.

"Good," another metallic rumble sounded as she clapped the other AMP suit's rust-streaked shoulder, "Get going, we don't have much time before we have to load up."

The other AMP gave her a brief salute, turned, and raced towards the freshly finished armory block, engine roaring as it accelerated.

She snorted softly, shaking her head. _One of these days Andrea, you're going to over do it._

Following far more sedately, she took her time to glance around Tartarus. Most of the damage from the year prior was gone, fresh layers of concrete and paint covering up where ash had covered the buildings. Smooth dirt left no traces of where trenches and shell-holes had scarred the soil. The biggest change were the additional buildings had been finished, including the Armory that she was heading towards. Not that they actually had the people to fill the second apartment complex, or to fully man the refinery, but they were structures that would be needed. The Ops-Center had its own upgrade, with a tall flight control tower now attached to one side.

_You could almost forget how many lives ended here... both human and alien._

Shaking her head at the morbid thought, she pressed the tips of her feet down, her suit rumbling as it accelerated correspondingly.

_Enough of that, I have more important things to focus on._

Reaching the armory block, she carefully shouldered her suit into the make-shift airlock. It was a temporary affair, existing solely to allow for individual AMPs to squeeze in and out without having to vent the entire building. A careful punch of the over-sized cycle button later, and the air began to roar loudly enough to be heard even within her shell. A pair of minutes later, the air finished cleaning itself, and the massive hatch swung open.

The Armory Block itself was almost completely empty, being designed to serve far more armored suits and choppers than were currently available. All of her people were in the bays nearest the main doors, in the best position to make a rapid exit in case of an emergency. Scuff marks and grease stains in empty bays indicated where Kozlov's own units would eventually end up once their patrol shifts were completed.

Lee Thompson and Marcus Anderson were busy arguing over a collection of tools, while Catherine Smith looked like she wanted to beat both of the males to death with their own wrenches. Andrea, half out of her own AMP, was already shouting abuse at her own trio of subordinates, the three men looking distinctively apprehensive as she began to explain, in great detail, just how badly they had fucked up in their activities.

Keeping her grin to herself, she swung her suit into its rack, locked the limbs into immobility, and popped the top hatch.

Her grin faded into a pained grimace as the armored hull easily swung open.

_The old man didn't have that._ _If he had, he'd be alive right now._

The original exits had taken more than a minute to first open, and then precious more seconds to awkwardly clamber out of. Thick armored sleeves design to protect the roof of the suit had simply been too heavy for the lightweight motors to move quickly. One of her first orders after being put in charge of salvaging the armored units was to revamp the entire system.

Lacking any evidence that they hulking plates had done any good at all, they had simply ripped them off, using the metal to shore up the armor over other, more vital sections of the suits.

_God dammit. Why didn't anyone think of this shit before hand? _The old bitter anger swelled up again, before she shook herself, _Stop dwelling on the past and get your idiots in line._

Peeling her gloves off, she dropped them on the main console before hauling herself up. It wasn't the easiest exit in the world. The entrance was rather small, and she was far from a petite woman. Hell, as far as she was aware, she was the tallest person on base at a hair under two meters in height. And not tall and thin either, she had to wince as the sides of the hatch dug into her skin before her muscled arms easily hauling her the rest of the way up.

"What the hell are you idiots doing?" the first sight upon hauling her upper-body onto the top of her suit was the two men and one woman of her squad still arguing amongst themselves.

"These two can't decide on what heavy repair parts we might need." Corporal Catherine Smith explained, her spiked red hair waving slightly as her shoulders shrugged with barely suppressed irritation.

"For the love of god," She turned her second best glare at the pair of guilty looking males, "Anderson, load up your toolkit and whatever spare engine parts you think we'll need. Thompson, get your ass into the Ops-Center and ask the good doctors for their full rundown of their time there. Smith, ammo and fuel checks."

The three sketched salutes and then hurried off to get their tasks done. Shaking her head, she watched them get to work, or leave in Thompson's case, before carefully scrambling down her suit. She had managed to round off most of the sharp edges, but it still paid to be cautious.

_Last thing I need is to slice my hands open on my own damn amp._

Reaching the floor, she took a moment to stretch backwards with a long groan, several of her vertebrae popping in relief.

_Spending too much time in that thing. _

Not that that was about to change. They would likely be all but living within their metallic shells over the next several days.

Sighing with disgust at the thought, she moved past Andrea as she continued to berate her troops, and headed for her locker. Punching in the five digit combination, she hauled it open so that she could drag out her already packed duffel bag. After a quick glance at the cracked mirror to make sure that her black hair was still only a few inches long, and thus not likely to get caught on anything, she grabbed her tablet before slamming the rickety metal door shut.

Tucking the thin computer under one arm, and hauling her duffel onto the other shoulder, she was turning to head back to the bay when the nearby berating finally reached its end.

"Get your asses to work!" the bellowed command drew her attention, glancing over to where Andrea was wrapping things up, "Priority on spare parts and fuel, make sure those space-pukes have enough room on their precious shuttle for us to load everything!"

Chuckling as her subordinate gave her men more specific orders, she shook her head and resumed hauling her gear back to her misshapen suit.

_Misshapen is right..._

The left foot was larger than the right, to counterbalance the fact that the leg itself was shorter. Likewise the left arm was slightly shorter than the right, and the 'armor' was little more than rust-streaked metal crudely welded on. The image of a snarling wolf on its face was badly chipped and half washed away, and only partially covered the fact that the torso's armor was a conglomerate of patches, layered over one another.

Her face twisted into a grimace, an expression all too familiar to her these days, as she kept up her inspection. The shoulders were canted awkwardly, and the left hand lacked fingers, making do instead with a heavy clamp.

"It looks like shit, just like the rest of them." Andrea approached, a small smile on her scarred face. "Maybe the plant will be able to get us better parts."

She snorted, turning to glance at her companion. Andrea McCarthy had always been a lean, almost hungry looking form, and the addition of two scars that raked horizontally across her freckled face did nothing to dispel the aura of danger she exuded. Hell, it had taken her _years_ of knowing the shorter woman before she had been able to relax when around her. "It had better, half the time I have no idea how these suits keep functioning."

A slight growl was the answer to that, and she quickly corrected herself. "I mean, besides the fact that you live here and spend most of your waking moments keeping these rust heaps together Sergeant."

That got a chuckled grunt, "The civilian mechanics aren't bad, when I can actually pry them out of Keppler's hands."

"I'm sure those conversations are fun." a teasing tone entered her voice, "I'm sure he's also tried to ask you about less, ah, official topics." It might have been easy to notice that Andrea was more than little unstable even at her best, but that unfortunately didn't stop more than a few men and women who seemed drawn to the lithe body hidden beneath the uniform. And while Andrea enjoyed the latter, the former she tended to shoot down in rather extravagant fashions.

Andrea snorted, "He did. I had to make it quite clear that I wasn't interested."

A sigh escaped her, "Please tell me that I won't have any angry Selfridge descending on me. Kozlov was less than amused when you broke whats-his-name's arm."

"Titov ma'am, and I was good this time."

"Good. Let's get our gear loaded aboard these death traps and get them cleared while the troops are working."

The pair of them spent most of the next hour going over every inch of the mechanical suits, ignoring the grease and grime which promptly coated their already stained uniforms. Everything had to be tested; every valve, every piece of electronics, every pneumatic cylinder. Even the fans in the cockpits were double-checked. AMP suits were finicky to keep running at the best of times, their patchwork versions needed almost constant examination to head off the dozens of little errors that would crop up if they were not resolved immediately.

"Ma'am? When we get that plant running, make sure that big guns are on the menu for us." Andrea said sometime later, wiping grease from her face as she glared at the machine gun resting in its rack next to Thompson's AMP.

"It's on my list Sergeant. All of Kozlov's suits got priority. Hell, we're lucky the commander gave us the go to have even three of the twenty mils."

The other woman grimaced, "I know ma'am, just don't like that most of us can't hurt the big shit."

She chuckled without humor, "That's what the bayonets are for, obviously."

They both laughed sardonically a bit at that. Smith had been the first to sling a razor sharp blade to the bottom of her weapon, and everyone else had quickly followed suit. They were mostly there for emergencies, where the entire unit ran out of ammunition and was forced to resort to more basic means of killing. Not that any of them really expected the blades to actually help much, it was mostly for their own psychology. They knew that if it came down to the point where you were trying to use the bayonet, you were all more than likely very dead already.

"Hey, if we run low on food maybe we can stick some Taprius with them." Andrea chuckled as she leaned up to check the edge on the blade welded to the bottom of the machine gun.

Laughing, she shook her own head before sticking it back into Smith's AMP, "I'd rather have algae than Tapirus at this point." A few good matured insults about the food quality, or lack thereof, and a few more about the cook's personal habits, followed, both of them relaxing in the common banter of soldiers.

By that time the rest of the team was returning from their various errands, often with dragooned help in tow. A few Russian AMPs, easily identified by being far closer to the original specs than her own machines, hauled in empty containers on rolling pallets and got to work packing them with spare parts. A few miners, expressions irritated as they entered through doors leading to the tunnels below, began hauling up containers of ammunition by hand.

Following them were a pair of figures that caused her to groan slightly, hopping off of Sheridan's AMP, the last of the ones she had to check. She tried, with extreme futility, to get some of the grease off of her hands before the pair arrived, but had to quickly give up as they drew closer.

"Administrator, Commander." she gave the latter an abbreviated salute, which was returned equally informally. "For what do I owe the pleasure?"

Selfridge nodded at the suit that Andrea was still mostly buried within, "Those things going to hold up out there?"

"Yes boss." she used the title she knew he preferred, "We're making the last checks right now, and we'll be sure to load plenty of spare parts in case there are any issues."

"Good." Commander Thomes' voice was brusque, as always, her pale eyes disconcerting as they practically bored into her own. "The Administrator here, along with the engineers tasked with running the plant, think they can make another construction chamber if the salvage from Hell's Gate is still intact enough to utilize."

She frowned, fighting the urge to look away "Wouldn't they still need to use a lot of the spare machinery they're carrying?"

The civilian leader nodded, "Yeah, but we'll bump up manufacturing those replacements to the top of the list if you can pull this off for us."

_Great. No pressure Joanne._

"I'm assuming that the data packet you sent out this morning as the information from the _Winter_ on what parts they need?"

"Right in one."

The Commander made a slashing motion with a pale hand, "Remember Sergeant-Major, your team's safety is priority. If there's too much shit there for you to accomplish your mission, bunker down in the Armory Block and wait for extraction."

"Yes ma'am."

An index finger thumped her breast bone, and promptly became smeared in grease, as the shorter woman made her point, "I mean it, I want no heroics out there. We can always send another team, but we can't replace the eight of your or your suits."

"Yes ma'am," her back straightened slightly, "I don't intend on losing anyone on this trip."

"See that you don't."

Her task complete, her commander spun in place and strode briskly back into the elevator. Selfridge, however, paused for a moment.

His face twitched subtly, a motion she had come to realize meant that he was suppressing a grin, "Please thank Sergeant McCarthy for showing restraint with my foreman. I'm sure there won't be anyone else stupid enough to encroach on her personal space in the future."

"Yes boss." she resolved to have a word with Andrea in private, "I was unaware that an altercation took place."

A snort, "You need more than one person to have an altercation, he was a bit too busy moaning on the floor."

"I'll talk to her sir." _And find out exactly what her definition of 'being good' is._

He waved a hand in dismissal as his slight shoulders rose and fell, "It's fine. He learned his lesson, and nothing was seriously injured except for his pride."

She nodded, "Anything else boss?" She let her eyes glance pointedly behind him.

The man followed hers with a frown, before noticing the increasingly darkening expression on the Commander's face as she continued to hold the elevator open for him.

"Ah, no, that's it." swallowing awkwardly, he quickly paced back to the elevator, looking pointedly everywhere but at his irate superior. Snorting softly, she shook her head as the doors finally were allowed to close. Quit chuckles and more snorts of amusement sounded from around her, everyone else pausing their activities to get a laugh where they could.

"All right guys, back to work, you can laugh at our dear boss at dinner."

There was a few more chuckles, but the organized chaos of preparation quickly swung back into gear.

"Sergeant McCarthy, a word in private." she rose her voice enough to be heard over the increasing noise.

Another round of smirks came into effect as her friend slowly pulled herself out of the AMP's engine space and clambered down to the ground. Everyone was fully familiar with the Sergeant's penchant for getting in trouble.

Beckoning, she led her on a slow walk into the cavernous building, watching as the lights slowly flicked on above them.

"Andrea, what am I going to do with you?"

"Ma'am?"

She sighed, "Andrea, you're the best engineer of the eight of us still alive. You're probably also the best mechanic on base at the moment. But you've got to be more personable, and less violent."

"What... oh." There was a guilty pause, "I'm guessing the boss talked to you then ma'am?"

"Yes, he did." a raised hand forestalled whatever the other woman was about to say, "He also said it was not an issue, so long as it did not happen again."

"It won't ma'am."

"It had better," she stated bluntly, "I've looked the other way on a lot of what you and your minions have been up to Andrea, because it hasn't caused anyone any real grief but you've got to watch yourself."

"I will ma'am."

Turning in place, she took the other woman by the arm, swinging her around to face her directly. "Andrea, if you have problems talk to me about them, don't try and beat your way out of it. That might have worked back on Earth, when we were overseas and the Captain could pull the strings to get you out of it, but it won't fly here. The people you keep blowing off or beating up aren't going to vanish when we get posted somewhere else."

The woman in question bowed her head slightly, a hand ruffling through her stained red hair, breath blowing out from between her lips, "I will Joanne."

"Get back to work Sergeant, and cheer up, we'll probably get to kill things very soon."

A snort escaped Andrea, a hand flying to her mouth, leaving an almost comical imprint of grease behind, "Yes ma'am."

Thumping her on her shoulder, she smiled as the two NCO's made their way back to the populated portion of the block.

"Look at those idiots." Andrea muttered as they returned, "Just lazing about."

Her people were in a small circle, a pair sitting with the rest standing, talking in a relaxed fashion. A pair of civilians were listening raptly while the Russian AMP pilots made their way back to the airlock.

"We can't have that," she agreed quietly, before filling her lungs with air and bellowing, "FALL IN!"

Ignoring her second's wounded look at receiving the shout right next to her ear, she watched with approval as the six troopers, joined by Andrea, swiftly assembled into line.

"I'm going to assume that you lot have everything all wrapped up then?"

"Ma'am, yes ma'am!" that was Smith, always looking to prove herself.

"Then why do I see eight crates still sitting here, waiting to be loaded onto the shuttle Corporal?"

"We'll get on it immediately ma'am!"

She grunted, "At least you gave the proper answer. Come on people, the last thing we need is for those bloody Russians and civvies to think that we're _lazy_. We're the hardest working people on this entire god-damn base, and I aim to make sure that everyone _knows_ it. So get to FUCKING work!"

Ignoring the bemused expressions of the civilians, who had wasted zero time in claiming the pair of chairs, she waited for her people to burst into motion before striding to her AMP.

As disdaining the use of the small lift now as she had been when she had exited it, she hauled herself bodily up the machine, still careful not to cut herself on any jagged armor plates, and settled into an easy crouch atop it.

After one more quick glance around the bay, she slid her legs into the hole and eased herself down and into the dark cockpit. Her feet sank a bit onto the pads before her ears heard the '_click_' of the clamps locking down onto her shoes.

_Feet, locked in._ _Hands,_ a mental pause as she pulled the long gloves on, _check. Power on._

Grabbing a red lever on the right side of the cockpit, she hauled it down. Breathing more easily as the engine kicked on, and the air conditioning with it, she squinted her eyes as the cockpit rapidly became illuminated in bright greens and blues.

"Authorization requested." a pleasant female voice echoed through the speakers.

_Bloody security. Who the hell is here that would steal an AMP suit?_

"Now, I have become death, the destroyer of worlds."

"Authorization confirmed, Sergeant Major Joanne C. Milana. All functionality is now available."

She snorted, "All functionality. That's a good one."

The suit's boot-up software, not being programmed to recognize sarcasm, ignored her, the various screens shifting as they came fully online. Most showed green across the board, though as usual the full-system diagram flickered randomly for nearly a minute, attempting to reconcile what its programming _thought_ the suit should look like, against what it was actually receiving.

Once it finally finished processing, a finger flick brought the comms online, "My squad, sound off."

"This is Ugly Two," Corporal Catherine Smith, "all systems are online."

"Ugly Three here," Private Lee Thompson, "fluctuations no worse than normal."

"Ugly Four, machine is rumbling nicely for once." Private Marcus Anderson.

"All right boys and girl, get our gear stowed. Sergeant McCarthy, status."

"Squad Two is online ma'am, Uglies Five through Eight already moving, civvies signal they're waiting on the word to open the main door."

"Good work people."

For her part, she still had the rest of her checklist.

_Hatch, closed. _Reaching to her left, she grabbed the yellow and black lever located there and hauled it down. The hatch above her swung shut, a dull thud echoing as it sealed shut, several loud clicks echoing as it was pulled airtight.

_Visor shield, up._ She ignoring the audible straining of the motor as it shifted the metal plate covering the glass upwards, letting her real eyes see through the V-shaped vision slit.

_Link communications to the Dream. _A few finger flicks, and a responding ping on the appropriate screen as the link was established, the computers aboard the ship patching her into the satellite's sensor network.

_Secure the weapon system._ Her right hand's fingers curled into the shape of a gun, and she mimed pulling a trigger. The AMP shifted out of its lock-down, gyros whirring as it straightened to its full height. Stretching out her left arm, she grasped the heavy cannon resting in its cradle, then swung it to the roof, where the magnets located in the shoulders locked it firmly in place.

Nodding to herself, she carefully shifted her feat, causing the suit to slowly lumber forwards.

Reaching out, she grabbed the sole remaining pallet with her left hand, and frowned in concentration as she carefully maneuvered the right arm so that the clamp could properly lock down on the bar. After that, it was a simple matter of pushing the cart and the heavy container atop of it towards the massive doorway, sealed and waiting.

"Door control, Ugly squad ready to roll out_._"

A deep baritone with traces of a Russian accent replied back, "_Confirmed that the bay is clear. Sounding the vent alarm._" The echoing blare was dimly audible through her suit's walls, "_Opening the door in ten._"

The appropriate number of seconds later, the massive doors began to slide open, air rippling as two atmospheres collided. As soon as the opening was wide enough to accommodate them, her people began to move out, carefully pushing the heavy containers ahead of their ramshackle weapons of war.

Letting her people get ahead of her, she carefully followed them towards the shuttle, taking the time to double-check the diagnostics that she was receiving about her people's suits. As they had sounded off, everything was coming back green, for the most part. A few systems were in the yellow, on Andrea's in particular, but nothing new or particularly alarming.

Ahead, the shuttle was perched onto the new landing pad, which was little more than extension of the first. Its massive form loomed over everything there, though the dark re-entry burns made it fit right in with the scarred equipment all around it. A separate pad, located closer to the armory block, was still under construction, civilians and mechanics swarming like ants as they worked.

Their small group of AMPs reached the ramp leading to the shuttle's pad in fairly short order, its bulk occupying nearly the entirety of the raised platform, meaning that it was barely a pair of steps for their suits to get on board. Her people began loading the gear inside, though her own attention was drawn to something else.

Apparently waiting for her was a burly human figure, pacing slowly as he watched her approach.

Grunting at the sight of him, she lumbered up the ramp before pausing beside him. Detaching her limbs from the cart's push bar, she rose her right hand/clamp in a salute while flicking her exterior speakers on.

"Captain Kozlov, seeing us off?"

He nodded, cranking his head back so that he could look into the thin vision slit. "That is correct Sergeant-Major. I'm assuming that the Captain reminded you as to your priorities?"

She chuckled, "That she did sir."

"Good, then I don't need to. Stay safe out there, and drag back some useful scraps."

"I will sir." it came out solemn, as a promise should. She saluted him once more, which he returned, before heading back towards the Ops-Center.

Once more moving through the irritating task of clamping down her hands onto the cart's bar, she resumed pushing it up and into the shuttle.

The other AMPs were already up against the hull, leaving a clear lane for her to move through. Reaching the back of the shuttle, she slid her suit into place amidst the rest, locking its leg joints in place. A pair of crewmen moved up and around her legs, attaching brakes and straps to make sure that they remained secure through the brief flight.

"Everyone locked in place?"

"Yes ma'am," Andrea responded, "We're locked down and ready for the flight."

Deactivating her AMP's arms with a quick gesture, she patched into the on-board systems before stretching as best she could in the cramped space. "We ready to fly?"

"Yes ma'am," the pilot's voice echoed around her, "Soon as your locked in place we can head over to the ruins."

"We're already set back here. Let's roll."

* * *

**Next is Night Witches II: Hunt, or be Hunted**

**Author's Notes**

The main two characters here, Joanne Milana and Andrea McCarthy are both known OC's from _Furor_, and I like the idea of expanding on what the survivors of the fights from _Victoria_ would experience in the long years between that story and _Furor_.

_I need reviews, lots of them, pretty please!_

**Review!**


	2. The Night Witches - 2

Shockingly, I'm not named James Cameron.

* * *

**Story I: The Night Witches**

* * *

**Chapter II: Hunt, or be Hunted**

**Date**: 18:31 March 15th, 2171

**Location**: Hell's Gate, Pandora, Alpha Centauri A System

"Well, this place is a fucking mess." she muttered, keeping her voice soft enough to not activate the mic.

Extra Solar Colony 01 had certainly seen better days. The last time she had been at the location had been the year prior, when Captain Jones had led the company on a scavenger hunt to haul back anything that looked usefull. Even then it had been an overgrown mess, and the damage that they had done to get access to much of the salvage had opened even more avenues for local life to get into the base. Now it resembled picutes of old hindu ruins, where the massive temples had been swallowed by the native jungle over the course of centuries. Of course, what took centuries back home had taken a relative handful of yeras here. Just for starters, the nearby Ops-Center was toast, the windows long shattered, their frames warped by the unrelenting pressure of the vines and roots arching through them.

"Hell ma'am, look at the refinery.." Thompson's voice was hushed, as though in awe of what the death world had done to the old place.

She snorted before speaking loudly enough for her equipment to pick it up, "What refinery Private?"

The massive maze of pipes, furnaces, and storage tanks had collapsed onto itself, the rusting metal no longer able to bear the increasing weight of the flora that had grown along and atop it. All that was left now was a rusting junkyard covered in vines, a few small trees poking through the rubble, seemingly even smaller as they were dwarfed by what was left of the piping. It was not news to her, from what Patel had told her the refiniry had gone down more than a few years ago, but it was still a sobering sight to simply stand and observe what had been done.

Forcing herself to look away from the site, and flicking a button on her main console, she shifted her frequency, "Andrea, we're approaching the Block. Status of your primary objective?"

"Looks like the building is mostly intact," the other woman's voice shifted as her suit's footfalls echoed through the radio, "Looks like the creeper vines and trees are still trying to push inside."

"Leave Uglies Seven and Eight on station there, proceed to your secondary objective."

"Affirmative ma'am, though to be honest I don't know what we're going to get out of the Ops-Center, it looks pretty much done in."

She shrugged, not that it could be seen, "I know, but if we want to reclaim this base we're going to need it."

"Moving out Sarge."

Another flick, back to her squad's channel, "All right boys and girl, let's hope the reactor still has a little bit of juice left. Corporal Smith, if you please, the doors. Cover her boys."

"Yes ma'am." Her three subordinates spoke nearly in sync, manuevering their battle suits as ordered. Smith, her AMP carefully holding its machine gun in one hand, kept the massive doors covered even as it approached the tiny panel set into the wall.

Joanne, along with Thompson and Anderson, carefully spread out behind her, monitoring their short-range scanners, their weapons clutched in metal hands.

_Now comes the dangerous part.._

The corporal had reached the panel, but as it was designed for human hands (the scientists who had been the bases's only occupants for a score of years had been forced to scrap the AMP-sized controls to keep the smaller panel working), she would have to get out of her suit to get the doors open. Though Patel had assured her that nothing had ever managed to get into the ancient structure, she didn't want to take any chances.

Her subordinate dropped her suit to a single knee, then carefully leaned forwards, extending its left arm to the ground to maintain balance. The motors and pistons shifted slightly as they were locked into place.

Once she was sure that her suit was stable, Smith moved fast. Wiggling her body out of the top hatch, she dropped to the ground and lunged for the panel, slamming in the command as quickly as her fingers could move. The moment the tiny lights shifted from red to green, and a deep moaning sound began to echo from the structure, she scampered back to the safety of her metal cocoon, hurriedly scrambling back inside and sealing the metal door behind her.

As soon as she was secure and safe again, Joanne shifted her focus to the multi-story doors, their massive hulks shifting while the old gears groaned audibly.

All four suits stood in place, watching as the light slowly spilled into the abandoned complex, waiting for something to leap from the darkness at them.

Perhaps anti-climactically, nothing did.

"All right, let's move in. Carefully mind you, we tore it up pretty good last time." she began to move forwards, minding where she put her suit's uneven feet, "Let's not have to dig into our spare parts already. Anderson, you're the only one whose got the spotlights working, lead the way."

"Got it Sarge, I'll point out anything nasty." The young man moved his own misshapen suit, three lights flickering into brightness on its chest as it limped past her own.

Even before he fully entered the block, she was cursing softly.

"Jesus christ, we did a worse number than I thought." A hasty button slap made sure that her people couldn't hear her cursing to herself even further, "God dammed son of a bitch. This is going to be a fucking pain in the ass."

During their intial salvage run to Hell's Gate, speed had been their greatest priority. They had to get in, grab everything they could, and get it back to the site that would become Tartarus. So little things like keeping the gantries intact, or even upright, had gone right out the window. What that meant was unlike the other buildings, which were being decimated by the simple life of Pandora, the interior of the Armory Block had been decimated by human hands. Gantries had been tossed over, crumples along the long metal bands showing where AMP suits had gripped them. Catwalks had collapsed when their intact supports had been cut away for use as scrap metal, and she could see more than a dozen of the self-propelled carts that had had their engines ripped open for the intact batteries and other electronics.

"Gonna be a long time before we can get this place up and running ma'am." Anderson called back from his place on point, his suit carefully lifting a rust-streaked leg over a fallen I-beam. "But looks like we've got plenty to work with at least."

"Yeah, just fire up our shiny new plant, churn out some parts, we could probably get this block back into shape in a few months." The ever-positive Thompson chirped, his tone light as ever, "Bet we could sup up some of these carts and-"

Her snort interrupted him, "We're not making a race-track in here you gearhead."

"Aw, come on Sarge, it'd be fun. Could sell tickets even."

"Then end up in medical when you blow up, I know how you operate." she heard the other two chuckling, "Now let me know if we missed anything."

"Doesn't look like it Sarge," that was Anderson again, "Captain did a good job with the team in here, I ain't seein' shit."

"I thought so. All right, Anderson, Thompson, you two keep up in here, give me a full walkthrough and triple-check, then find eight gantries that are intact enough for us to use." she glanced down at her mission clock, "Smith, you're with me, time to link up with Squad Two and see what we can do."

"Ma'am."

"And you two watch yourselves in here, squawk if something moves."

"Don't worry sarge, we'll keep ourselves from getting killed."

"You'd better," she growled lightly, "The boss and the Commander wouldn't like it, and if I had to get dressed down by them because one of you got yourselves eaten I'd be throughougly pissed off."

More light laughter, and a few more acknowledgements later, she and her female Corporal carefully exited the massive structure.

As soon as they were clear, she opened up the channel to McCarthy once more, "Talk to me Andrea."

There was a very long pause before a deep male voice answered, rather neverously, "It's Sheridan ma'am, Sergaent McCarthy took Matt and Fernando into the complex to scope it out, I'm guarding the suits."

Her heart spasmed, "She _what!?_"

He repeated himself, even more nervously the second time around.

_God dammit Andrea, are you _trying _to get your ass killed?_

"Stay on point Corporal." she snapped aloud, then shifted to her all-hands frequency. "Anderson, Thompson, get your asses out of there now! Meet up at the primary objective, you'll join the Corporal in defending are suits. Smith, double-time it, we're going in after them."

The original plan, as she had hashed out during their flight, had been for her team to confirm that the Armory Block was still intact, as well as uninhabited, while McCarthy took her team to make sure that the STG-plant was still intact and sealed. Once she had confirmed that, she was supposed to have left two suits in place while the other half of her squad examined the Ops-Center to record the extent of the damage. Once all of that was done, they would _carefully_ begin to examine the plant, with all eight team members persent, two of them guarding their AMPs, the other six operating on foot to clear the building.

_What the hell is she thinking? God dammit Andrea, I told you to check out the Ops-Center, not dismount and wander into the plant! Especially since the geeks indicated that Viper Wolves started to nest in these buildings when they ditched the place!_

Her suit moved into a lumbering run as she pressed her feet down, her arms moving to maintain the ramshackle machine's balance as it accelerated.

At full speed it did not take long to reach their target, the deceptively plain building located between what was left of the Refinery and the Ops-Center. Three stories tall, and a hundred or so meters in length, its unremarkable appearance concealed the fact that it was the main entrance to the plant that had once produced nearly everything for the entire complex.

_Three floors tall, sure, but then add on the five more floors going straight down, that's plenty of space for wolves or stingbats to hide._

Of course, most of the large structure was just empty space. The plant itself, capable of manufacturing nearly anything its creators might need, was buried on sublevel three, sitting on top of a mass of coolant pipes and storage rooms filled with space parts. The levels above it were filled with the various elevators and cranes required to haul resources and equipment up and down. Overall, the plant had always been larger than it needed to be, and the Administrator had admitted to her that he had never had any idea why his predecessor had built such a massive structure to house it.

One of the hell-truck sized doors was partially open, a single AMP suit visible, the machine gun crudely bolted on where its right hand should have been tracking from side to side.

"Talk to me Sheridan, do we have radio contact?"

The other suit did an awkward side-step as they approached, clearing enough space for their metal bodies to get past.

"Negative ma'am, last I heard they were heading below ground." another pause, "Lost contact when they reached the second lower level."

_God dammit._

Entering the room, she was unsurprised to find it virtually empty, the the entire space little more than a constrained box just big enough to fit a hell-truck. Where once there had been equipment to remove the incomming cargo, now there were just hanging wires and torn concrete, yet another sign of their 'supply' run the years prior. The only things of note were the three empty AMP suits, looming in an uneven line near the human size airlock door.

_At least they left that open for a quick retreat._

Quickly moving her suit into its own place, and hurriedly bypassing the normal shutdown procedure, her hands flew across the controls before grabbing her exopack and slapping the egress button.

Hauling herself up and out, at the same time affixing the clear plastic mask to her face, she noted her subordinate likewise wiggling her body out of its metal cocoon before carefully scrambling down.

The other woman's voice called across the mostly empty garage, "Shotguns ma'am?"

"And pistols, load up Corporal."

She had strapped her bags to the back of the AMP's suits torso, just above what would be the waist line. Her weapons bag was the closer to the ground, the easier to open.

Extracting the heavy weapon, she went through a quick safety check, took a moment to grab additional shells, made sure that her pistol was still secured on her waist, then turned to the airlock. What followed was a quick check of the flashlight built into her weapon, then an equally fast check of the tiny handheld device she kept in a pocket as a backup.

"Ready ma'am." Smith moved up to stand next to her, the shorter woman carefully holding her own weapon.

"Then let's move, lights on."

She wracked her brain for directions even as they carefully moved through the airlock, entering the facility proper.

_Entering the south side, so we're moving into the loading-offloading level, have to watch for the open elevator shafts that haul shit up and down. _Her body paused as it entered the pitch-black facility, her light slowly scanning from left to right, revealing looming machines slowly comming into sight through the darkness. _Nearest stairwell down should be... to our left._

The pair of them moved in silence, relying on hand gestures and quick glances to communicate.

It was slow going, the sounds echoeing up through the open shafts deeper in the room causing both of them to pause, quickly checking to make sure that the source was not on their level. Whether or not the noises were being caused by the rest of their team, or by something...else, she could not tell.

They had just reached the open door to the concrete stairs when her ear bud crackled to life.

"_Ma'am? It's Sheridan, the other two have just arrived."_

"Good." she murmured softly, "Stay in place and protect the gear. Have Fernando go through the facility specs and find the best place for us to take the suits into the main chamber."

"_Yes Ma'am."_

"We're heading down to sub-level two, if we're not back in thirty assume hostiles and contact Tartarus for back-up."

A pause, "_Yes ma'am, good luck._"

The stair well, unlike the room they had just left, featured a fine coating of dust on the floor, and she felt her chest ease slightly at the sight of several boot prints heading down, and an absence of clawed paw prints. Still, just because they weren't already stalking her people didn't mean that they weren't present somewhere.

Moving more quickly, though still careful to check each bend before moving down a flight, they bypassed the open door leading to the first sub level. Though the footprints had headed into that level, they had apparently cleared it and returned to the same stairwell, the same prints resuming their own trek downwards.

_Second sub-level is small, holds the control room and had a view of the main plant._ As before, the door was wide open, footprints visible in the dust, leading down the long hallway.

Seeing nothing as far as her light stretched, she knelt in the doorway, waving the Corporal forwards.

The other woman jogged perhaps a dozen meters in before she also dropped to a knee, double checking that a door on her right was sealed shut before making a quick motion with her left hand.

Rising, Joanne quickly moved up and past her subordinate, moving until she hit a T-intersection. Glancing down for just a moment, then checking her corners,she made her own beckoning gesture, following it with a command to head left.

As they continued their cautious advance, she began to hear more noises quietly echoeing in the hall. Soft footsteps, quiet conversation, growing closer as light began to illimunate a corner ahead of them.

_Andrea._ The name came grimly to her, irritation and anger still more than ready to lash out at her friend and subordinate.

It did not take long for the other group to come into sight, a shotgun followed by a male head whipping around the corner ahead as Private White checked the hallway, his mask gleaming as their lights caught his.

"Ma'am?" his voice was surprised, but thankfully he was still disciplined enough to keep his voice low.

"Move up and cover me," she snapped, not bothering to hide her anger. "Move it private!"

"Ma'am!" a hand vanished behind him as he signalled the other two, then he hauled ass, breaking into a sprint to move past her, taking a knee opposite Smith as the Corporal soundlessly turned to cover the hall behind them.

The moment the other two appeared around the corner, she snapped, "Report."

McCarthy blinked at her for just a moment, the small tell enough to show that she was thrown off-balance by her tone, before launching into her report. "Controls seem intact, so do the lifts. No sign of fauna on the lower levels, but we did find claw marks on the main level, probably wolves."

"Just claw marks, nothing else?"

"Nothing else Sergeant."

"Then form up, we're heading back to the surface." she lowered her voice slightly, "We will discuss your liberal interpretation of my orders later."

Andrea winced slightly, but kept her tone controlled, "Ma'am. You heard her boys, back to the surface, cover and advance."

The trip back to the stairwell was tense but unremarkable, each member of their team fully alert to any change in their dark surroundings. They paused only to shut and lock the door leading to the first basement level, after she had a quiet conversation with McCarthy's team to confirm that the level had indeed been clear of any creatures.

It was not until they had reached the main level that Smith, taking her turn on point, froze suddenly. Dropping to a knee, the Corporal raised her left fist tightly, carefully swinging her weapon around with her other hand.

Along with Joane, the rest of the team slid into what cover was available, taking shelter behind the still machines that loomed around them. Following the Corporal's example, her own weapon and light tracked to her left, deeper into the facility.

Nothing but darkness and shadows of technology.

"Corporal?" she kept her voice low, "Report."

"Heard something ma'am, sounded like claws." the other woman's voice was also a whisper. "Damn echoes in here, couldn't tell how close."

"White, get your ass up there, the two of you are on point. Serganet McCarthy, take rear guard, everyone keep your ears open."

Moving far more slowly through the facility, her small team continued to make their way towards the exit to the loading dock, where their AMP suits waited.

They made it to within fifteen feet of the door before all hell broke loose.

The sound of claws striking metal went from faint to a clamour, and she felt the hair on the back of neck standing on end as alien wolves began to cackle to one another in the darkness. The echoeing nature of it made it even more unsettling than it would have otherwise been, and she had to fight to keep the shotgun steady in her hands.

"Stay-" she didn't even get to finish telling her people to remain calm before a snarling roar that made her ears ring signaled the start of the attack.

Adrenelines flooded her body, and it felt like she had all the time in the universe to observe the pack as they darted forwards into the wan glow of their flashlights. There was six of them that she could see, each one as tall as the average human, their ink colored skin bulging as their muscles propelled them forwards.

They were fast, even amidst the treacherous footing of abandoned equipment and toppled machinery, covering most of the distance between the darkness and the small knot of soldiers in a handful of moments.

Moving entirely on reflexive instinct, she almost casually lined the barrel of her weapon up, keeping it secure against her shoulder as she gently squeezed the trigger. The solid slug tore into the snout of the creature closest to her, sending bloody tissue flying in all directions even as its furious snarl became a wet gurgle.

Her ears rang as guns began to bark and roar around her, and high pitched screetches of pain joined the alien snarls. Andrea and White dropped their targets as efficiently as she had, two more twitching bodies slamming and skidding across the metal floor as they expired. Another, lither and smaller than the rest, yelped almost comically in surprise, darting suddenly to the left as the wolf beside it bellowed in stupified pain as Smith's shot tore its left foreleg from its body.

Which left one. It closed on Young with long, blurred strides. The Private shifted his aim, blowing out a long breath as he began to pull the trigger. Almost as though it had sensed when he was about to shoot, the wolf suddenly kicked out with its three right legs, propelling itself better than four feet laterally, his shot doing little more than grazing one of its rear thighs before ricocheting off of something in the darkness.

Swearing, she swung herself around, working the action on her weapon, desperate to get off a shot before it leaped, her subordinate likewise frantically shifting his aim, half taking a step back in a futile effort to buy time.

It slammed into his chest, it fore paws raking at his chest while it tried to dart its head around the shotgun he frantically shoved upwards like a bar to keep the thing's mouth away from his skull.

She wasn't sure who shot it first, her, Andrea, or White, but in the end, it didn't matter. Three rounds fired at point-blank range blew massive chunks of flesh free from its body, and it twisted off of him, spasming uncontrollably.

"McCarthy, Smith, get him outside!" the snarled order was out of her mouth even before the thing had hit the ground. "Prep to-"

"More!" White's shout cut her off, his weapon roaring as he fired, and missed, at another shape moving just beyond their light.

"Withdraw, cover them!"

Suiting actions to words, she began to back peddle as rapidly as she could, trying not to notice the trail of blood under her feat from where Fernando Young was being dragged along the floor. Strangely, the viper wolves were apparently content to let them go, remaining in the darkness just beyond the range of their lights, visible only as hulking shapes darting around, only their cackling and barking chased them as their small group hastily filed into the airlock.

"White, get this thing sealed, both doors. Sheridan, on the horn to Tartarus, we need a medivac yesterday!"

"Ma'am!"

Turning away from the closed hatchway, she fought back a wince at the site of the young private. His front was a mess of blood, and she could see muscle and bone where the things claws had shredded him. About the only good news seemed to be that his ribs had done their job, sheltering his heart and lungs at the expense of being chipped and battered.

"You all right Fern?'

"I'll... live... sarge." his words were puncturated with gasps of pain, his dark features twisted in a grimace, "Damn... meds... can...start... any.. time."

"He'll be fine." it was Smith, frantically working on bandaging his wounds, who spoke, her tone making it clear that no alternative would be acceptable.

"Samson's on the way, twenty minutes out!" Sheridan's voice sounded off through their comm beads, "Docs are prepping for him back at base."

"Good." leaning down, she carefully squeezed his left shouder, before taking a few prudent steps away to give him and her corporal some privacy. Had they been on Earth, their growing relationship would have been frowned upon at best, but out here... well, sometimes you had to bend the rules a bit.

_We've lost enough since we landed, I'm not going to order them to lose more._

Those thoughts faded rapidly from her mind, however, as her casual stroll brought the person responsible for the current debacle into her sight.

"Jo... Sergeant-Major." her friend stumbled over the greeting, her already pale face losing more of its blood as the darkening fury of her expression became clear. As if on auto-pilot, she watched as the shorter woman drew herself up to perfect parade rest, her eyes becomming focused on something in the far distance, her moutch clenching as if to prepare for a blow.

"_Corporal_ McCarthy."

The red-head's body stiffened as though she had just been shot, her eyes going wide in horror. "M...ma'am?"

"Dismissed, Corporal." she put as much of her anger into her words as she could, practically spitting each of the syllables. Ignoring the shaking salute entirely, she spun on her heel, stalking back towards her AMP, trying to contain the burning anger that had re-ignited within her chest.

"Ma'am..." Sheridan's voice spoke quietly across the comms.

"_What now!?_" the snarl was out before she could stop it, and she could _feel_ seven sets of eyes staring at her.

"The... commander is on the line for you."

_Of course she fucking is. _"I'll take it from my AMP."

"Ma'am."

_God damn it Andrea._

* * *

**Next is Night Witches III: The Darkness**

Please please review and tell me what you think!


	3. The Night Witches - 3

Hey-o, Avatar ain't mine yo.

* * *

**Story I: The Night Witches**

* * *

**Chapter III: The Darkness**

**Date**: 19:58 March 15th, 2171

**Location**: Hell's Gate, Pandora, Alpha Centauri A System

"_This is not the news I was hoping to hear Sergeant._" Though Maria Thomes' voice was always a bit on the cold, aloof side, it was positively frigid now.

Joanne Milana, secure from sight inside of her AMP suit, didn't bother to hide her wince, "Ma'am, yes ma'am."

"_Don't give me that yes-ma'am soldier bullshit. McCarthy's always been a loose cannon, but dammit Milana I expected you to keep her on a leash!"_

"I.. have no excuses ma'am."

_"And I wouldn't accept any. Let's hope for both of your sakes that Private Young survives his injuries." _There was really nothing she could say to that, and so remained silent as the Commander continued on. "_McCarthy's demotion is approved, Smith will take command your second team. If we didn't need every damn AMP pilot I would shove her in a cryo tube on the Terran Winter and send her back to be court martialed._" there was a long, almost seething sigh, "_The Eye of Sirius will be here in one year. You have until then to convince me that her skills as a mechanic and a pilot warrant remaining."_

She was not really sure that she wanted to do any such thing, friend or no, but the Commander had an unfortunate point. For all of her problems, Andrea McCarthy was easily the best AMP mechanic on base, and had been even before the losses from the battle. Hell, even beyond keeping them running, only Weigand had been able to touch her when it came to piloting skills. She was damn near a savant when it came to the exo-skeletons.

That being said, even someone with her skill set could only push things so far before they crossed the line.

_And she didn't fucking cross the line, she fucking leaped across it. _

"Ma'am..."her mouth worked silently as she tried to find the words. It was harder than she thought, the anger fading slightly as the memory Andrea's stunned pain floated to the forefront of her mind, "I'm.. not sure that... well..."

"_I don't care if you think she can or should be salvaged._" Thomes apparently had no difficulty reading her mind, even through the radio, "_I don't care if you even make an effort to do so."_

That... was not quite the response she was expecting, "You.. ma'am?"

Another angry hiss of a sigh, "_I do not need to explain myself to you Sergeant Major. Inform the Corporal that she has three hundred and sixty-five days, beginning today, to convince me not to send my recommendation that she be dishonorably discharged and sentenced to three years in a military prison._"

"Yes ma'am."

_"Tartarus Command out._"

Slapping her own comm system off, she had to fight the urge to rip her comm bead off her ear and hurl it against the wall.

_God dammit Andrea, what the hell am I going to do with you..._

Sucking in a deep breath, she did her best to let it out slowly, raising both of her hands to rub slowly at her temples, trying to let the slow motions drain some of the tension from her skull. Friend or not, on Pandora or not, she had finally gone and done something that could not be taken back, something that could go so far as to cost her everything that she had worked for in her life.

_Hell, if Fern's hurt worse that we think..._ Thomes would already have the firing squad ready and waiting for them, and the rest of them would probably be busted down to Private and stay there for the rest of their natural lives, and that would likely be if they were lucky. The Commander might have turned a blind eye to a lot of the goings-on around the base, but when someone crossed a line she went off like an anti-matter reaction.

Which made her decision to give Andrea a year to get herself into shape all the more confusing. It was positively merciful compared to what she had been expecting when she had started the connection, it was far more in line with what Weigand would have done.

_I mean, sure, Andrea's got skills that we can desperately use to get our suits back into fighting shape once the plant is online, but this... dammit Commander, what the hell are you doing?_

The deepening _thrub-thrub-thrub_ of an approaching Samson provided a welcome distraction, and Sheridan's subdued voice crackled through her suit's speakers a few moments later to confirm that, "Chopper is here ma'am."

"Good."

By the time she had gotten her mask back on and wiggled her way out of the AMP, the medics had already made it into the garage, calmly but firmly pushing Smith out of their way as they rapidly went to work, setting their stretcher on the ground next to him while the focused on inspecting the wounds.

"Good work on the bandaging," one of them was speaking to the Corporal as he worked, "Slowed the blood loss. Main concern is shock."

"I'm fine doc.." Fern's voice had taken on the unnatural, almost dreamy calm of the heavily sedated, his pupils the size of coins, "This is some shit.."

The medic chuckled dutifully, "You'll be fine kid, Corporal, mind helping me here?"

Smith quickly moved to grab one end of the stretcher, her face still drawn with visible concern though she thankfully remained silent. Between the three of them, they got him onto the long board in a matter of moments. Hardly giving the rest of them a backward glance, the two medics began to haul him out at a quick jog, apparently not even noticing his weight.

"We'll keep you updated Sergeant." the only one who had been speaking called back over his shoulder as they moved out past the three AMP suits still on guard position.

Her legs carried her next to Smith, and she rested a hand on the smaller woman's slim shoulder, "He'll be all right. Get some skin grafts and stitches on him, he'll be up and around in a few days."

Smith nodded jerkily, blowing out a few long breaths before gaining control of herself and nodding slowly and firmly, "Thanks Sarge."

"I know this is rough on you Catherine, but we need you right now. You're getting breveted up to Sergeant and moving to Squad two."

"I can handle it."

"I don't doubt it," she assured her, and she meant it. Catherine Smith was a good soldier, and had been on the short list to receive a promotion after she had done an exemplary job during several of the skirmishes in the run up to the main battle. Sheridan, the Corporal in that squad, was dependable enough, but.. he was not exactly command material. His tendency to keep quiet and let McCarthy run roughshod over him had not exactly helped him move up on the promotion board either. "We've got a few minutes, take some time if you need it, then I want your squad to check over the Ops-Center."

"Ops-Center..." a hand rose to run firmly through her spiked hair, doing little to make it behave but the motion seeming to reassure her none the less, "Yes ma'am. Do you need me to leave Sheridan on guard duty?"

"The boys can handle it. You'll be down to three effectives, I want both of them with you."

"Ma'am." Smith chewed on a pale lip for a moment before nodding, "I'll get right on it, need to be doing something right now."

She clapped the other woman on the shoulder, "Keep the comm lines open, and squawk the moment you see anything."

To her credit, the newly minted Sergeant did not need more than a few moments to gather herself before waving White over, speaking quietly to him as they moved towards the exit. Outside, the whine of the Samson's engines increased, their thrust hurling small debris past the still open doorway as the pilots dusted off.

All of which left her alone with Andrea.

Not looking forwards, at all, to the conversation that was about to occur, she forced herself to turn away from the entrance that Smith and White had vanished through to regard the cavernous room's only other occupant.

They had been friends since they had both been assigned to the combat engineers. Andrea had gotten in straight from basic, where she volunteered after her first tour as a general grunt had dumped her in the thirty year quagmire that had been Myanmar. Even these days she still had nightmares about those bloody swamps, and she had leapt at the chance to get out from being rotated back. They had met on her first night there, at some seedy-ass bar in the Brooklyn slums, in the middle of a drunken bar brawl that she was still pretty sure that Andrea had started.

The Captain had just shaken his head when they'd officially reported in the next day, both of them covered in bruises and bandages, tossed them their orders and firmly shoved their unwashed bodies out of his office. From that morning on, the pair of them had hardly been separated in better than five years of both peace and combat, saving each other's lives more than either could count.

"Ma'am." her face still drawn, Andrea had settled into a classic at ease position, her eyes locked into a thousand yard stare. Her pale skin seemed even more drawn in the low light, making her red hair stand out in a strangely noticable way. "Orders, ma'am?"

Anger once again tried to gain steam in her chest, but a sudden wave of exhaustion made her heart feel like it was in her gut. Sighing, a hand rose to her ear, tapping the comm bead until it she had her squad's channel selected.

"Boys, the corporal and I are going to have words. Stay on guard, if Smith shouts let me now ASAP."

"_Ma'am._" Anderson's voice carried easily, "_Understood. We'll let you know if there's any issues."_

Manipulating the small device again, her fingers tapped the tiny buttons until it deactivated with a quiet '_beep_'.

"Yours, off as well."

Blinking slightly in confusion, a freckled hand nevertheless rose up, fingers tapping away at her own. "It's offline, ma'am."

"We're off the clock."

"I..." the military pose faded into awkward shuffle, eyes shifting to stare at her own feet, "I.."

"Why Andrea? You knew what you had to do. You had your orders. If you had an issue with them why didn't you bring it up earlier? What got in your head to make you go charging off?"

"I just..." she visibly shifted her weight from one foot to the other, "I thought we could get a basic recon done, make things easier on ourselves later."

"That's bullshit and you know it." Hesitating only fractionally, she took a few long strides forwards, reaching up so she could take the smaller woman by the shoulders, "Andrea, I'm going to be blunt here. Do you have a death wish?"

"I... what?"

"Do. You. Have. A. Death. Wish?"

"No!"

"Then why the hell do you keep throwing yourself into situations like this?" It was not until she saw her eyes widening slightly that she realized she was practically shouting while she shook her. Forcing her fingers open, she took a half step back, "Andrea, tell me the truth. What is wrong with you? Do we need to get you to a shrink?"

She should have known that it was definitely not the right question to ask, and it was hard to resist the urge to take several steps further away when the smaller woman's eyes flashed, her entire body virtually trembling as her jaw clenched.

_Crap_.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."

"There is nothing wrong with my fucking brain and you damn well know it." the words were strangled, and friend or not, it was clear that she was resisting the urge to start throwing punches.

"I'm sorry, I should have remembered..." her voice trailed off awkwardly.

"Yes, you should have." her green eyes were still burning with anger, but thankfully she still kept herself under control. "I don't have a fucking death wish, I don't need a god damn shrink asking me bullshit questions to try to understand me. I fucked up all right! I fucking get it! I've been demoted, and I'm sure there's already a spot on the fucking ship to drag me back to Earth."

"No.. there isn't."

The furious steam that Andrea had apparently been building seemed to dissipate at that statement, her frame rocking back on her heels as though she'd just been hit. "Wait.. what?"

"I don't understand _why_, but Thomes is giving us a year to convince her to keep you."

"I.. what?"

"Don't ask me, I don't understand either." a long sigh escaped from her lips, and she took that step closer again, a hand reaching up to gently rest on Andrea's shoulder. "You understand? You're going to have to be _perfect_ from now until when the next ship gets here. No brawls with men hitting on you. No unauthorized trips to test out your AMP. And even if you do all that, and do nothing but live and breathe your job I don't know if the ice queen will let you stay. Hell, she might just be doing this to get a year of work out of you."

"I...don't have much of a choice, do I?"

"Andrea.. we're friends, but you said it earlier. You fucked up."

"Yeah.." there was a long, slow exhale. "An earth year huh?"

"Three hundred and sixty-five days, including today. We've got permission to, well, assist you.." _or leave you out to dry._

Something of what had gone through her head must have appeared in her voice or in her expression, as some of the anger came back into Andrea's. "She gave you an out, didn't she?"

"We're under no obligation to help you." it was harder to admit that she had thought it would be, and it was difficult not to fidget in place as those green eyes snapped up from the ground to glare into her own.

"Are you?" It was part a challenge from a subordinate, and part plea from a friend. "Or am I on my own?'

"Andrea..." she blew out a long breath, "You fucked up, and I'm not going to lie, I'm still pretty fucking pissed off with you. But you're the best AMP pilot I've every seen, a damn fine mechanic, and... as irritating as you can be, you are one of the few friends I still have left alive. If the ice queen is giving you a second chance, then how the hell can I not?"

Her subordinate and friend let out a strangled snort, then took a quick step forward to pull her into a bear hug. "Thanks Joanne."

"Uh," she grimaced as her chest compressed from the force of it. "You're... ah.. welcome.. ribs?"

"Sorry!" The arms quickly released her, Andrea falling back, a slight blush to her face.

"It's all right." On impulse, she shot her right arm out, slugging the smaller woman in the shoulder, "Just watch the strength all right Corporal?'

Some of that cockiness had returned, a tiny glint to her eyes. "Yes ma'am."

"All right, enough of this emotional stuff. I don't like the idea of sticking around after sunset. Get back to your AMP, grab Thompson and see to getting the Armory block prepped for the night."

"Ma'am." the Corporal drew herself up, executing a perfect parade-ground salute, her expression becoming grave, "I won't fail ma'am."

She felt something catch in her throat as she brought herself up as well, returning it with equal formality, "I know you won't Corporal."

As Andrea gave her another slight grin before jogging in the direction of her Amp, she reached up to reactivate her ear piece, "Smith, sitrep."

_"Situation is about what you'd expect ma'am. The building itself seems intact and stable, but it's going to take a hell of a lot of work to get it running as an Ops-Center again." _There was a pause, accompanied by the sound of an AMP heaving something aside, "_We found a sting bat nest on the north face, and who the hell knows whats gotten inside. Damn near every window is broken, and most of the airlocks are compromised."_

"Your recommendation?"

That earned a longer pause, before, "_I would have to say we stay the hell out. The STG plant is basically a big empty box, and we should be able to clear it with just us._ _This building though..we're looking at a million and a half places where anything could be hiding, not including the rat's nest of tunnels and who knows what else underground._"

"I'll take a quick check tomorrow, but I doubt I'll find anything to disagree with you. Get your team headed to the Armory block, we're going to bunker up for the night."

"_Understood ma'am._"

With that conversation out of the way, she shifted back to the squad level channel, "All right boys. Thompson, you're with McCarthy, soon as her AMP is up and moving you'll be headed to the Block. I want a double-check of the integrity and an area cleared for us to park fo the night. Anderson, you're with me. We're going to take a short jaunt around the perimeter of the refinery, make sure that there isn't a bloody Thanator or something nesting in that damn mess."

"_Understood ma'am._" It was Anderson who replied, "_We cleaning out the plant tomorrow?_"

"Bet your ass private. Soon as we deal with those wolves, the real work can 's roll people."

* * *

**Next up is Character Profile: The Ice Queen**

This came out a bit shorter than I intended, but moving on after the long, personal bit between the two soldiers just didn't seem right.

We'll definitely be seeing these characters again in the future, but for now we're moving on to some character profiles. Hopefully everyone will enjoy them, and with equal luck they'll get me prepared to return to Semper Vitae (I had an aborted effort of working on the next chapter, but was having difficulty keeping everyone in character.)

**Please, please review.**


End file.
